Thursday, May 24, 2018

This week for Photo of the Week, we
would like to feature an amazing shot of the Milky Way with the
Northern Lights adorning the background. Taken in Finland in subzero
temperatures by talented photographer Petri Kangasniemi, this amazing
photo took a patient amount of waiting to capture, after many cloudy
skies. But in the end, the skies opened up, revealing the majestic Milky
Way over the cold lands of Scandinavia.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

NASA's
newly launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has made a
close flyby with the moon, using the celestial body to make a 'gravity
assist' manoeuvre to help the probe reach its final orbit. TESS will be
used to monitor stars' brightness, searching for tiny dips that could be
signs of alien planets crossing the stars' faces. TESS snapped
its first image with one of its scientific cameras on April 26. This
photo centred on the southern constellation Centaurus and showed over
200,000 stars. "The edge of the Coalsack Nebula is in the right upper corner, and the
bright star Beta Centauri is visible at the lower left edge," NASA
officials wrote in a statement.
"TESS is expected to cover more than 400 times as much sky as shown in
this image with its four cameras during its initial two-year search for
exoplanets. A science-quality image, also referred to as a 'first light'
image, is expected to be released in June."

Monday, May 21, 2018

Taking inspiration from the Harvard RoboBee microbot design,
RoboFly is comparable to the size of a bumblebee with a weight of only 190
milligrams (nearly the weight of a toothpick). When an infrared laser is
directed at a tiny photovoltaic cell, 250 mW of power allows the robotic insect
to take flight.

Powering small-scale robots has been a fundamental problem
in development. To combat this issue, most tiny robots rely on tethers; RoboFly
instead explores the use of lasers. Due to the innovative problem-solving of roboticists
from the University of Washington, in Seattle, RoboFly is now the first
insect-sized robot to perform untethered flight at its small scale.

Currently, the UW team has achieved a range of control of up
to 1.23m indoors. However, future developments are looking into increasing this
range through the implementation of more powerful lasers. Robofly developers
are also looking into the use of lasers that track and indefinitely power the continuous
flight of the microbot.

On May 19, 1910, the Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet. This is one of the closest contacts between the Earth and any comet in recorded history. As a result of expansive newspaper coverage, the pass of the comet was anticipated by the public. Aside from the facts, the event was anticipated with dire predictions and seen as a sign of “impending doom”. Some of the fears relating to the comet’s passing included that the comet’s tail contained poisonous gas and that there would be a celestial collision. Halley’s comet was named for the British astronomer Edmond Halley who was the first to determine its orbit and accurately predict its return to the Earth's night sky. He published "A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets" in 1705, which cataloged 24 comets that appeared near Earth between 1337 and 1698. His observations based off of historical records led Halley to propose that the comet may continue to visit Earth. The comet appeared in 1531, 1607 and 1682 and as of such, Halley suggested the same comet could return in 1758. Halley died in 1742 before the comet returned.

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Recently, a team of researchers led by Case Western Reserve University astronomers have found a brand-new cloud of ionized gas associated with the Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a and NGC 5194.

The cloud is about 26 million light-years away, and may give insight into the behavior of a supermassive black hole and how it consumes and ‘recycles’ hydrogen gas.

The cloud itself is around 81,500 by 24,460 light-years in size and is located 104,370 light-years north of Whirlpool Galaxy’s center. It was seen using the Burrell Schmidt Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Quote from Professor Chris Mihos, Case Western Reserve University, “The discovery’s role in more clearly understanding how galaxies eject and ‘recycle’ their gas and stars will be determined in the coming years as more researchers dig into information that had been there all along — even if unseen until now.”

Friday, May 18, 2018

This week for Photo of the Week, we
would like to feature a stunning photo of the Milky Way over Glacier
National Park in Montana. Taken last summer over Lake McDonald, this
lovely composition is unique in that not only does it feature the faint
Milky Way, but it is also accompanied with the shining lights of the
Northern Lights.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Astronomers
using recently released data from the European Space Agency's Gaia
spacecraft have discovered the fastest-growing black hole ever found. At
the time, the black hole was seen devouring a mass equivalent to
Earth's sun every two days.
The brightly shining object was
identified as a black hole. This black hole appeared to have a mass of
about 20 billions suns when light was released and was found to be
growing by 1 percent every million years.
In the end though, the
black hole is far enough away that it likely released its light over 12
billion years ago. Although the light began in ultraviolet light and
x-rays, this light has shifted into the near-infrared during its long
journey to Earth. This light was detected by researchers using the
SkyMapper telescope at the Australian National University. They then
used data collected by Gaia to confirm that the wavelengths being
detected were truly the composition of a black hole.
"This black hole is growing so rapidly that it's shining thousands of
times more brightly than an entire galaxy, due to all the gases it sucks
in daily that cause lots of friction and heat," said Christian Wolf, an
astronomer at the Australian National University and first author on the
new research.